Bird Song (50 page)

That time will come.

Four words had never sounded so sweet.
 
For the first time in what felt like a lifetime ago, I rested my head against Robert’s chest.
 
The hollow sound that existed there provided me with a strange comfort, and I closed my eyes to it, allowing its silence to blanket me as we moved swiftly through the dark clouds.

As the lights below us grew brighter, it got harder and harder to ignore them.
 
The noise as well became difficult to tune out and I knew that we were outside of Heath’s city limits.
 
I just didn’t know where.

We’re in Newark, just outside of the Police Station.

I braced myself as the ground drew closer, but Robert landed with perfect grace and skill.
 
He had managed to bring us within feet of the building without being seen, but there wasn’t any time to stop and marvel at such a feat as Robert lowered my feet to the ground and removed my arms from around him.
 
He clasped my hand in his and began to pull me towards the main entrance, his feet moving far too quickly for mine to keep up and I tripped several times before we made it through the doors.

It was only then that I realized I wasn’t wearing any shoes.
 
I looked down at my feet and groaned at the damage my lack of speed had wrought.

“We can worry about your feet later.
 
We have to help Mr. Frey,” Robert whispered into my ear before dragging me down a long hallway.

He pulled me through a door on the right and we soon found ourselves in a small room that had a tiny window covered by a grate.
 
“Wait here,” he said in a stern voice that promised dire consequences if I were to disobey.

I wanted to ask him just where exactly I’d go with no shoes or clue as to where I was, but he had already left, closing the door behind him.
 
In an attempt to make the time pass by more quickly, I began to inspect this room that Robert had brought me to, but it was as bare as my feet.
 
Only a small, rectangular metal table and two cold, metal chairs decorated this room.
 
The walls were gray, painted concrete with nothing adorning them to take away from the drab and dank atmosphere.

A florescent light hanging above my head was flickering in that annoying way that makes you certain that that’s where headaches are born.
 
I closed my eyes, pressing against my lids with my fingers in an attempt to block out the bright pulses, letting up only when I heard footsteps approaching…and then passing by as they continued down the hall.

I don’t know how long I waited, but it was long enough for me to have fallen asleep on the cold surface of the table.
 
I began to dream almost immediately, the cold and lonely room in the police station quickly morphing into the cold and lonely room in my own house.

I was standing in the middle of my bedroom, nothing having changed at all, yet everything was different somehow.
 
I looked over at the bed; it was unmade and well slept in as usual, the covers pushed down to the foot of the bed, and a pillow had fallen to the floor.

I turned to look at my dresser, everything still piled carelessly on top, my alarm clock pushed to the far corner, a stack of books on the opposite end.
 
I looked at the mirror and saw that my reflection showed nothing different about me.
 
Same plain face, same brown hair and brown eyes.
 
I began the short trip to my closet when something caught my attention.

Or rather, something that wasn’t there caught my attention.

I turned to look once again to my dresser, and my gaze traveled to the bottom of the mirror.
 
There was a sticky residue there, evidence that tape had been there, but whatever it was that it had been holding was gone.
 
I looked at the top of the mirror and saw the same sticky residue, but no tape.

I tried to remember what it was that had been there, but my mind was foggy with thoughts that didn’t feel like my own.
 
The sound of a car starting up outside caused me to turn around and head to my window.
 

I stuck my head through the opening and smiled as I saw Graham’s car pull away from the curb.
 
He was probably heading off to work.
 
A few seconds later, Richard came storming out of their house wearing a stained bathrobe, a frosted bottle filled with clear liquid in one hand, a glass filled with ice and an amber liquid in the other.
 
He was shouting at the car as it sped away, the words too garbled for me to make out, but the tone saying more than the words could.

I called out to him, my anger at his behavior towards his son taking control, and chastised him for letting the alcohol once again take priority over sobering up for his son.
 
He never turned to look at me, and instead took a swig from his glass and shuffled back into the house, the ratted bathroom slippers on his feet kicking up muddy slush from a spring snowfall that I did not remember onto the bottom edge of his robe.

A knock on the door caused me to jump.
 
I hit my head on the window as a result and was rubbing the growing lump when Dad walked in.
 
He was holding a basket of freshly laundered and folded clothes.
 
“Hey, Grace.
 
Did I scare you?”

I shook my head.
 
“No.
 
I was just looking outside.
 
Richard was shouting at Graham and I yelled at him to stop, but it’s like he didn’t hear me.”

Dad nodded his head and smiled.
 
“Of course he didn’t hear you, Grace.
 
He’s half-dead from all of the booze, and half-deaf from all of that yelling.
 
I don’t know how Graham puts up with it, but I suppose you can’t help but worry about him, no matter what happened between you two.”

“He’s my best friend, Dad.
 
It’s kind of my job to worry about him,” I joked as I began placing my shirts into my drawer.
 
I stopped at the last one, the markings on it very familiar.
 
I opened it up and puzzled as to why it was in my possession.
 
“How did this shirt get in here?”

Dad patted my shoulder.
 
“Grace, I understand that you feel a need to hold onto Graham despite what he’s done to you, but his behavior and his treatment of you should be enough to tell you that he’s not your friend.
 
I cannot even say if he ever truly was.”

Rolling my eyes at Dad’s over-protectiveness, I shook the shirt in front of Dad’s face to bring his attention back to my question.
 
“Why was this shirt in the wash, Dad?”

He grabbed the shirt from me and looked it over before placing it on the dresser.
 
“You always had a thing for smiley faces, Grace.
 
I would guess it was in the wash because you wore it again, though I don’t know why.
 
It’s a fairly ugly shirt.
 
You’d think that there’d be more of a selection at that thrift store you like so much.”

I stared at the shirt and opened my mouth to tell Dad that I hadn’t worn this shirt in over six months, that it had been in Robert’s possession the last time I saw it, but held my tongue.
 
That would have been very difficult to explain, and Dad would have automatically assumed the worst, which would have been even more difficult to reverse.
 
I set it aside closed my drawers.

“How’s Janice doing?” I asked as I began to put away some of the other items in the basket.

“Why are you asking about her?”

I turned around, a pair of socks in my hand, and took a good look at his face.
 
He looked thinner for some reason, older.
 
There were dark circles beneath his eyes, and the lines on his forehead seemed to have grown deeper and longer, engraving his face with an age that didn’t belong to him.

“I wanted to know how she was doing,” I said slowly.

“I don’t know how she is, Grace.
 
We stopped talking to each other after she moved, remember?”

My face wrinkled with confusion.
 
“What do you mean, ‘after she moved’?
 
Moved where?”

Dad’s mood grew sullen and he started to walk away.
 
“Dad!” I called to him, and he turned around, his eyes sad, his mouth twisted in anger.
 

“You got your way, Grace, isn’t that enough?
 
She never had a chance with you, we never had a chance, and now that I’m finally starting to move on, move past this, you bring her up again.
 
Is this some kind of twisted game you’re playing, Grace?
 
I get that you’re still upset about Graham.
 
I understand that you blame yourself for Stacy being the one hit by that car and not you, but do you have to act like everyone else’s feelings are here for you to toy with because life dealt you a lousy hand?”

The words that came out of his mouths sounded foreign, they didn’t make any sense because none of that happened.
 
But then the memories, those strange memories in my head that felt like they didn’t belong there…suddenly did.

I closed my eyes and I could see images that weren’t mine, and yet were.
 
The first day of school, the day of the accident, the aftermath…they were all familiar and yet different.

Dad had said that it was Stacy that had been hit by the car, but how?
 
In my eyes, I saw the same road, and I was on it, but I wasn’t alone.
 
Stacy—she was beside me; we were walking, her car having broken down half a mile away, and we were headed towards the library to use their phone.

In every other way, the scene played itself out exactly the same, but this time it wasn’t me that was hit.
 
I heard myself scream as Stacy was jolted away from me, the impact of the car sending her shooting forward and landing on the asphalt several feet ahead of the vehicle, which then proceeded to run over her before coming to a halt a few feet away.

The driver stepped out of the vehicle; disoriented and on shaky feet, he walked over to the crumpled and bloody heap that was Stacy.
 
I ran towards them, my voice nothing but screams.
 
The man looked up as I came nearer and then in a panic, began to run to his car.
 
I screamed at him to stop, to come back and help, but he left.
 
He got back into his car and drove off.

I looked down at Stacy and I shut my eyes to the image, opening them up once more in my room.
 
“Stacy…” I whispered, and looked up at Dad’s face, it was twisted with the same pain that I was feeling.

“She didn’t suffer, Grace.
 
The doctor told you that she died very quickly, that there was nothing that you could do.”

I shook my head at the idea of Stacy dying.
 
Healthy, ass-kicking Stacy?
 
Stacy was the one hit by Mr. Frey’s car instead of me?
 
“This isn’t real,” I began to mumble to myself.
 
“This isn’t real.
 
Stacy’s not dead.
 
I was the one hit by that car.
 
It was me, not Stacy.
 
Robert knows that it was me, he was there, remember?”

Dad shook his head and approached me.
 
He placed two, strong hands on my shoulders and began to shake me, the motion too gentle to do anything but muss my hair.
 
“Grace, what are you talking about?
 
Yes, baby, Stacy is dead.
 
Remember?
 
The car swerved to avoid you and hit her instead.
 
She died just a couple of weeks after school started.
 
And who’s Robert?”

“Who’s Robert?
 
What do you mean, who’s Robert?
 
He’s my…”
 
My head whipped around to the mirror, my eyes focusing in on the spots on the mirror that were conspicuously empty.
 
“He’s, he’s…”

“Grace?
 
He’s what?
 
Who is he?”

I turned to look at my dad’s face and I couldn’t answer him.
 
I reached to grab the t-shirt that he’d placed on the dresser and noticed my hand—my right hand—was bare.
 
I dropped to the floor and began searching the carpet, my hands running over and into the soft plush material, raking it with my fingers.
 

“Grace, what are you doing?” Dad asked, alarm tingeing his voice.

I didn’t answer him.
 
I simply knew a desperation to find the ring that wasn’t on my finger, that should have been there because I never took it off.

“Grace,” he shouted when I didn’t answer him.
 
“Grace?”

He began to shake me, and everything began to fall into place.
 
Janice had moved away, just like he had said she would.
 
Dad’s attitude towards Graham was just as cold as it had been after Graham had ended our friendship, which meant that Graham and I had never made up.
 
But we hadn’t made up until after the accident…which killed Stacy.